(I received a free copy of this book from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.)

Twenty-three-year-old Elaine Kelly doesn’t earn much as a bank teller, and most of her salary goes toward caring for her terminally ill mother. When a lonely old man who deposits money at her bank every week gets hit and killed by a delivery truck, Elaine—a good Irish girl from Queens—thinks she’s found the answer to her problems. She’ll just transfer $1 million from the dead man’s account into hers.
Except that the lonely old man may not have been who he seemed. And when you take $1 million that isn’t yours, it can cost you…way more.

One of those thriller novels that starts out with the best intentions and ends up being over-written and goes beyond the level of believability. Which is a shame...

As a lot of reviewers have previously said, the first part of this book was really good. Some good character insight into Elaine - working at the bank, trying to support her ill mother - and we got off to a good start. But when the lovely old guy gets knocked over in the street and she decides to help herself to cool million bucks...that's when this story goes backwards.

The seemingly unlimited number of events that befall Elaine are insanely ridiculous. Worse still, the way she kind of just "lucked" her way out of them was just as silly. I don't know what the author was trying to achieve but it just didn't work.

Sadly, this also affected the pacing of the story too. For a while, the suspense would build nicely, then a ridiculous event would happen...and this went on a number of times, to a point where the "incident" became a case of "oh, here comes another McGuyver escape..."

I find it hard to recommend this book based on all the other great crime fiction getting around. However, if you like the idea of "the more ridiculous, the better", then this could be for you!


Paul
ARH